Early Life
Albert R. "Cubby" Broccoli was born in the borough of Queens, New York City, the younger of two children of immigrants from the Calabria region of Italy, Giovanni Broccoli and Christina Vence. He acquired his nickname after his cousin, Pasquale "Pat" DiCicco, began calling him "Kabibble," eventually shortened to "Kubbie" and adopted by Broccoli as "Cubby." The family later bought a farm in Smithtown, New York, on Long Island, near their relatives the DiCiccos.
During his early period in Hollywood, Broccoli may have taken part in a bar-room brawl which took the life of comedian Ted Healy. According to E. J. Fleming's book The Fixers, Broccoli, his cousin, gangster Pasquale "Pat" DiCicco, and film star Wallace Beery fought with Healy and beat him to death. Fleming asserts that MGM executives Eddie Mannix and Howard Strickling, in an attempt to save the reputation of their star Beery, fabricated a story about college students attacking Healy, immediately followed by a four-month trip to Europe for Beery. Immigration records confirm a four-month trip to Europe on Beery's part immediately after Healy's death, ending April 17, 1938.
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